Boy born in Poland to mother on life support goes home

Warsaw: A brain-dead Polish woman has delivered a baby boy after she was kept alive for 55 days so that she could give birth, as reported BBC.

Doctors at Wroclaw University kept the 41-year-old mother alive for 55 days while they waited for the boy to grow.

“It’s rare to successfully maintain a pregnancy for so long, that it is at such an early stage, at 17 or 18 weeks,” said Barbara Krolak-Olejnik, head of the neonatal unit at the University Hospital in the southern city of Wroclaw.

The 41-year-old mother was rushed to hospital by ambulance late last year and deemed brain-dead due to brain cancer.

“Her whole family wanted us to try to save the child,” Krolak-Olejnik told AFP, adding that the baby boy was born in January in the 26th week of pregnancy.

Doctors delivered the baby when they judged the boy’s life was in danger.

He was born in January in the 26th week of the pregnancy, weighing just 1kg (2.2lbs), said Barbara Krolak-Olejnik, head of the neonatal unit at the hospital.

“It’s rare to successfully maintain a pregnancy for so long, that it is at such an early stage, at 17 or 18 weeks,” Ms Krolak-Olejnik told the AFP news agency.

The little boy spent three months in intensive care and has now gone home with family, weighing 3kg.